


Blood Ties

by xannish



Category: American Horror Story
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-25
Updated: 2013-12-25
Packaged: 2018-01-06 00:22:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1100274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xannish/pseuds/xannish
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At first it felt like freedom. From rules, from consequences, from all those social bonds he never really wanted. He’d spent most of his life in the haunted House, and for Tate, death was an awakening.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blood Ties

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pesha](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pesha/gifts).



At first it felt like freedom. From rules, from consequences, from all those social bonds he never really wanted. He’d spent most of his life in the haunted House, and for Tate, death was an awakening.

He learned to listen to everything, to see without being seen. He lingered around the fringes, and watched his mother play her part. When the cops came knocking, she acted as if she didn’t even know what they were talking about. She offered them cakes, and smiled blankly at their questions, except when she suddenly had fits of forsaken tears. Behind her back, they called it shock, and left her lots of business cards and pamphlets, “in case she needed anything.”

After they left, she burned them one by one, smiling at the flames.

She talked to Tate constantly. She made his favorite foods, invited over the few kids from school he’d ever been close to, and when she was alone alternately cajoled and cursed him. He knew how to answer her. He’d figured out how to appear corporeal within the first day. But he didn’t. Not for her. He would never have to come when she called ever again.

Addie was different. She could see him even when he didn’t mean to be seen. Not that he usually tried to hide from his sister. He wanted to be there for her. The thing was, she didn’t always want him to be. She was angry. For Larry (released from the burn unit into the custody of the psychiatric hospital, he heard, and Tate figured if the bastard wasn’t dead, crazy might be the next best thing), for the school, for not talking to Constance. For dying, and leaving her behind.

“It isn’t fair,” she told him, finally. She was in her room, brushing her hair with fierce strokes, watching him in the mirror behind her. “She wants to talk to you. When you don’t talk back she takes it out on the rest of us.”

“Fuck her,” Tate answered. “She just wants control, and that’s the one thing that I’m not giving her.” He was playing with a snow globe they’d gotten from a trip to Disneyland, tossing it back and forth between his hands restlessly. Constance had been manic, and the vacation had been spontaneous. She insisted that they needed the family bonding. As if Mickey Mouse could make up for a murdered father. As if their family could bond with Beau chained up in the attic.

“She wants you back. You’re the one she thought was good. She says it to people all the time.”

“Yeah, and now she knows she was wrong.” It was a trick to catch the globe, combining reflexes with the concentration it still took to affect the physical world. He was getting good.

“ _As if._ ” Addie slammed the brush down and turned. “Don’t you see what you did to me? You were going to get me out of here. You were supposed to take care of me.”

“I still will,” Tate insisted. “Trust me.”

“How can I trust you when you’re DEAD?!” Addie yelled.

There was a crash as the snow globe fell through Tate’s outstretched hand.

“We could have run away from here,” she said more softly, tears glistening on her cheeks. “Now we can’t.”

The door opened..

“Now what is all that _noise?_ ” Constance demanded. She was drying her hands on a washcloth, as if trying to look like the perfect sitcom housewife.

Addie didn’t answer, and Constance looked from her face, down to the shattered snow globe, then up, panning around the room as if intent on catching his eye even if she couldn’t see him. “Hm,” she said. “You know, I think that we are having far too many _accidents_ around here lately. By God, I don’t think it’s entirely _safe._ Maybe we ought not to have moved back in here at all.”

Addie tensed, and that only spurred Constance further. “And besides, with Larry in the hospital for who knows how long, we don’t really still have any claim. They’re talking about foreclosure, and we’re no better than squatters. Can you believe that? Foreclosure because he can’t pay, because of his _accident._ ”

As if being doused in lighter fluid and set on fire was an accident. As if Tate was a force of nature and not a boy full of anger and justified hate.

“Yes, I think we’ll just have to move back out again.”

“No!” Addie cried.

“It can’t be helped. And besides, if the police keep sniffing around, they’re bound to turn something up.”

“I’m not leaving! You can’t make me!”

“Oh, I can make you, all right,” Constance purred, “and if you think for one second that _someone_ is going to stop me, you’d better think again, missy. I’m still mother to _all_ my children, and until I am out of this house, _I_ make the rules.”

Addie trembled, not looking at either of them.

Tate, silent and immaterial, couldn’t argue at all.

 

Constance made good on her threat. They moved back to the house next door, and she refused to let Addie come visit, though Tate saw her staring listlessly from the window. Sometimes she waved, and whenever Constance caught her, she closed the blinds. Financial trouble or not, the real reason for their move was clear: Punishment. Punishment for Addie by taking her away from her friends, and punishment for Tate knowing his sister suffered just out of his reach.

The only family he had left was Beau, up in the attic, and while Tate still went upstairs and read him stories, and played silly games, all it did was fuel his hatred for their mother. Maybe it had been Larry who did the deed and smothered his older brother in his bed, but he wasn’t dumb enough to think that it was Larry’s idea. Constance had him charmed. He’d do anything for her. Even murder her disabled kid. Well, look where it got him.

 It was two weeks before Addie got out and came back. He was there as soon as she stepped into the yard. She ran to him, and he pulled her into a tight hug, practically sweeping her off her feet. He buried his face in her hair, like he’d done so many times, but he could barely smell a thing.

“I missed you. She kept locking my door from the outside.”

“She’s a crazy bitch.”

“I want to come stay with you.”

“She’ll just come drag you back. Maybe it’s better to play along until she lets you out again.”

“I don’t want to go back in there. I want to stay with you. I want to play with my friends,” she insisted.

A soft chuckle interrupted them. Constance leaned on the fence, watching. “Well, well, well. My prodigal son shows his face at last. And here I’d almost thought you’d escaped.”

Tate glared, but it was too late to try to disappear now.

His mother smiled. “I’m glad to see you’re still here, though, after all you’ve put me through. I always thought I’d only have you a few more years, before you found some girl or some gang and ran off from me forever. You’d never write, never call. Oh, I know. I’ve been the wild child.”

She lifted her chin, sending her curls bouncing. “But now I don’t have to worry about that at all, do I? I’ll always know _right_ where to find you.”

Tate tightened his grip on Addie, and she clung right back.

She turned away, still smiling. “You two enjoy your little reunion. And Adelaide, you’d best be home by supper.”

At first, it had felt like freedom.

But it didn’t take long before Tate realized that it wasn’t different for him, no matter how many favors the other ghosts owed him or how many tricks he knew. No matter how close his family was.

The Murder House was a prison. And being trapped there for eternity? That was Hell.


End file.
